


Pain Talking

by aptasi



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Backstory, Bisexual Character, Divided Loyalties, Drug Use, Friendship, Guilt, Humiliation, Impaired, Implied abuse, Injury, Missing Scene, Other, Pain, Painkillers, Ramblings, Raving, Relationship Disintegration, Trauma, Warder Bond, awkward conversation, drugged, high, love and or bond triangles, warder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28273704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aptasi/pseuds/aptasi
Summary: The pain medicine given to Moiraine in Fal Dara after the Eye puts her rather out of control
Relationships: Moiraine Damodred & Lan Mandragoran, Moiraine Damodred/Siuan Sanche, Moiraine Damodred/Thom Merrilin, Nynaeve al'Meara/Lan Mandragoran
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Pain Talking

**Author's Note:**

> This mainly focuses on Moiraine's failing friendship with Lan. The other listed ships are involved in flashback/flashforwards and/or arguments.
> 
> Rating is for drug use and trauma. Mind the tags

The rules about the women's apartments were usually only slightly more malleable for Warders. However when that Warder was bonded to an Aes Sedai who was severely and heroically injured, there was such a thing as standing permission. Thank the light they were in the borderlands where Moiraine could be at least respected. That was a small consolation however, remembering the days of riding out of the blight, with his fierce little bondholder clinging to the world by pure determination, the pain and exhaustion in the bond so loud it was almost unreadable. 

Lan let himself into the room as a healer let herself out.

Moiraine lay like a child's doll, tucked under far too many blankets. 

Lan looked down at her "You don't feel much better." He observed.

The healer says I need a full Aes Sedai, or time. There was little she could do." Moiraine noted. "Which was to be expected. However she did confirm the wisdom's sense that I have stabilized." Her tone though matter of fact was tight. "I am not about to take a turn and die on you Gaidin just yet."

'She give you something for the pain?"

Moiraine reached to the bedside table and touched a closed paper packet. "I do not like these. They make me feel out of control and nauseous. I would rather just have the pain, Gaidin."

It was a Warder's business to know when his Aes Sedai was hurt. Moiraine was in agony. She had been since the Eye, where Lan for the first time had failed to step in front of death for her.

"Pain scale of one to ten. Do not deflect, Moiraine." He knew, but needed to hear her say it.

"Now or while it happened?" She asked tensely. 

"Now."

"Eight and a half."

A gut wound with a Whitecloak arrow had been plain eight, as it happened. He worried for anything over four. Moiraine was not in the habit of exaggeration."You said you were not so frail."

Frail refers to capability, not what I feel. "I can..." She tried to sit up. 

Lan stopped her. "No need to demonstrate."

"If I had to." She insisted.

Lan glowered. "Take the herbs. My Blue Ajah soldier of the Light." The last part got affectionate but booked no compromise. 

"I do not…"

"Take them. Get at least one proper night's sleep."

'They will damage my inhibitions." Moiraine said matter of fact, "So if you feel the need to check on Nynaeve, you had best do it before I take any. You will need to stay close to mind that I don't say the wrong thing to the wrong person."

Guilt washed over him, cold and heavy. He knew she must be able to feel it. "You're my Aes Sedai Moiraine. You."

"Gaidin, it happened." Moiraine said. So calmly, so reasonably that he wanted to grind his teeth. 

"It will not again." He promised.

"Fortunate for you that you are not bound by the oaths." Moiraine mused. "If you do need to see her, give me more until I am unconscious. We both know these strong flowers loosen my tongue. There are things I really must not say."

Lan swallowed. "Alright. Now here." He pushed the packet towards her. If you won't have mercy on yourself, have it on me. Feeling all this pain I contributed to in you is distracting me."

"You would rather mind after me all night?"

"That's not so bad is it. We've had some fair nights like that. Me, healed by your hand. You, full of some local reader's concoction making up outlandish stories about the constellations. And telling me everything you ever got away with in the tower." The stories about evading Merean took on a bit of bite since the woman turned out Black Ajah but Lan had liked to remember that Moiraine was not born with her life already taken away like him. Especially right after nearly losing her he liked to recall that. Moiraine had possessed life, even something like happiness, and she'd given it up. Brave for a slip of a Cairhienin noble-born Aes Sedai. Brave for anyone.

Moiraine's face softened a little. Only he would be able to tell it had changed. 

She unfolded the packet, looked at the green herbs and flowers. "I could have had these in the blight. We passed some" She touched petals. "But I suppose the wisdom cannot be expected to be versed in borderlander botany."

Lan decided he was best off letting that dig go and boiling water for some potent tea.   
_____

"Are you going to stare at me all night?"

"Are you going to sleep?"

"Perhaps, but apparently not yet."

"There's a stones set. I might actually be matched with you in this state."

That was overly ambitious of Lan. Even reclining back in exhaustion and pain Moiraine still played like a very skilled Cairhienin if not her usual master level. Lan was good at stones, truly and could best most nobles he met at it but Moiraine probably had under ten good matches in the known world. Maybe closer to fifteen if the Forsaken were free. 

She did play a much more interesting game as the medicine got into her blood. Lan know Moiraine's game style was extremely cautious, possibly the most so among stones masters. Now she was playing much more creatively. 

"Are you offended that I do not forbid you to see Nynaeve." Moiraine said, moving a game piece.

"No." Lan said. 

"She is a fine girl. A lot more capable than I was at that age."

"Moiraine." He moved a piece without calculating it. 

"And she will be one of the most powerful Aes Sedai of this age." Moiraine seemed to have forgotten about the game board, the piece she picked up immediately set forgotten on the bedspread. 

"You don't know what you're saying."

"It could work. I can mask the bond when you visit her."

How could something so absurd be so guilt inducing? "And what, you spend that time with your husband?" The foreteller would predict Moiraine ending up with the person in their group Lan trusted the least. Typical. 

"Husband." Moiraine frowned. "I like his hair." She mused. "I did not know I liked white hair."

Lan shifted uncomfortably.

"But it felt so soft when I was taking his tiredness. Do you think he will let me touch his hair when we are married?"

Lan figured the light-blasted man would probably let Moiraine touch anything she wanted, if his blood ran red. "Probably."

The Aes Sedai smiled like she'd gotten away with something but then looked down at her injuries and winced. Lan could feel the pain through the bond. 

"But I dare not trust him." Moiraine said. "Why he killed Taringail. Just ran him through under the clear blue sky and said it was a boar. When anyone could see the shape of his knife in the wounds. But no one did anything about it because Taringail… Taringail… he would...used to..."

"Shhhh, Moiraine, quiet."

"Be silent, Moiraine!" She mocked his tone. "Just have your little wilder girl if you want her, and I will not tell anyone. Light knows I never tell anyone anything." Moiraine laughed. "Not anything at all." Then she kept laughing. It crossed over to hysteria within a second.

Lan watched awkwardly. He had let this happen to his Aes Sedai. Not just the physical injury but the damage to dignity as well. He had failed her and now she was humiliated, even if it only showed this ugly now. "I can't expect you to understand. You haven't done anything this disgraceful."

"I did give up Siuan. Tell me, Lan" Her voice had a rasp to it that felt wrong on her. "Is this the first time you've loved someone the cause wanted to take from you, so much?"

He did not answer. 

"Siuan made me want to be more than alive." Moiraine whispered. Her voice was slurred off and the bond was floating in a way that let him know she beyond any doubt wouldn't be saying this if she weren't drugged. "The world needed me to give her up. So I did. I loved her. Have you ever seen two Aes Sedai dancing around trying to claim they do not love each other with the first oath against them. It is a hilariously pathetic sight."

Isn't this usually my job, to turn the conversation maudlin? 

"...but you have found someone that makes you think of sunrise and flowers... and you are almost all the wheel has left to take from me…"

That really wasn't fair. Despite the truth in it. 'Don't talk like that Moiraine."

"Like what? You know I speak the truth."

"Like the wheel is evil."

"Why?" Moiraine's eyes were foggy. "It is not always good."

"Because..." Lan said slowly. It wasn't like Moiraine to be sacrilegious. "It is like naming the Dark One."

"Don't make the wheel angry." Moiraine sighed, ticking off her fingers like she was counting points, melodic voice roughening to a more common singsong. "Don't make the king angry. He does whatever he wi-..."

"Shhh..." Lan whispered. "Don't talk." That was not going anywhere good, especially if Moiraine lost track of where she was. Or worse when she was. Novice games weren't the only thing she'd let slip in those nights under the stars. If there was one thing Lan could solidly respect the Aiel for, it was killing off most of Moiraine's family, so he didn't have to do it himself. He supposed he had to acknowledge Merrilin's contribution to that particular task too now, but he pettily didn't want to do any such thing.

"The wheel is not good." The Aes Sedai insisted.

"Be quiet, Moiraine."

"It is not." Moiraine insisted. "But it is not evil either, always. We have to realize the pattern..." She got temporarily distracted by the weave of the blanket across her lap. "Pretty, so nice and even. What was I saying?"

Nothing. It really was convenient that Lan wasn't bound by the oaths. "The medicine should be working, Moiraine. How's the pain now?"

"Pain... well it is definitely there, is it not... definitely somewhere." A tear brimmed in her eye and she rubbed it onto her hand, rolling and playing with the droplet with an absent expression like she had never seen one before.

"You are cold." He informed her. 

"Am I? There are so many blankets. Mountain ranges of blankets." Moiraine mused gesturing grandly. "Like the spine of the world.

I can feel you're cold. " Lan was beginning to retroactively wonder if Moiraine had needed to take quite so much. She was small and easily affected by drink and the like. Except even full of enough to be untethered she was still in pain. Pain enough to make soldiers twice her size lose their mettle.

If you say so." Her eyes were wandering around the room, disorientated. She sat up and looked around the blankets falling to her waist, leaving her upper body in a too thin shift. "Why did Elaida just help me practice for my test? Do I have to test again? I need to ask Merean." She tried to move.

Lan grunted. "Alright. Here we go." The warder kicked off his boots and sat on the bedspread next to his Aes Sedai. He wrapped another blanket around Moiraine's shoulders and his arms above that blanket. "There. I've got you. You're not going anywhere right now." He was fairly sure she would not be able to channel, at least not constructively. 

"Hmm?" Moiraine sighed and went heavy again.

He stroked her hair, slowly, carefully. It mirror Moiraine's own behavior when meeting a feline she didn't know. Affectionate but cautious. When she was up and healthy Moiraine moved around too much for this. She only fit in his arms when she was nearly dying. 

"Lan…" She whispered. 

"I'm here. You can rest."

"I know about the ring."

"What?" He almost lost his grip on her. 

"I know…" her speech was slow and so poorly enunciated it was almost unrecognizable "You gave Nynaeve your ring." 

He shouldn't have thought he could conceal it. "Moiraine, I…"

"My mouth has gone numb." She complained. 

"Perhaps you should rest while it clears up."

"Mmm, if you insist."

Such a strange mix of emotions. He cared about her more than he had ever thought possible. He wanted to soothe her to sleep from this pain that he had caused from his guilty divided loyalties. And at the same time he wanted to shake her and scream at her. She had known all along about the ring and had kept it quiet. Why? For leverage over him later? Moiraine was so manipulative she even kept a Daes Damer file on her own Warder was that it?

"Lan I..."

"What do you want from me?" The question came out more like his thoughts than he wanted.

She fidgeted "Want? What want? It does not matter what I want? It is about need. Find the Green Man with need. I need…"

"No… what do you want?" He was good at what she needed, but could never seem to manage the other. 

"Want… I… Tell me it hurts because I did well. Not because you did or did not interfere."

Just give her a reason. Nothing comforted Moiraine so much as to hear it was helpful, fair, and right for her to hurt.

He could do that. "Moiraine all this pain is because you saved Rand. You slowed down Aginor. You went up against a Forsaken, and he couldn't brush you off. That's why he hurt you. You did so well. He was angry at how well you did. And next time you go up against one like him, you'll do even better. You'll burn them right out of the pattern."

She smiled. 

"My Aes Sedai has more iron in her than all the forsaken put together." He added. 

She smiled, something not quite her. "You approve of that sort of thing."

Fair enough. "It hurts because that's what one against the whole world does." Two against the world had been better. But that wasn't working anymore. "I'm sorry. I…"

"Why did you ask what I want, if you have no intention to give it?" Moiraine muttered. She was shaking in the blankets like a drunk. 

He grunted. 

"You worry where no need lies and blame yourself in impossible situations." Moiraine continued, precocious but with tumbling inflection. 

"I…" Had the woman met herself?

"You know that annoys me." She folded her arms which knocked all the blankets out of place. It looked adorable and horrible.

"Do you even remember what I... " Lan muttered, tucking the blankets back around her. 

"I'll hear no more about it. I forgive you, Gaidin."

"Moiraine…"

"Hush." She ordered. 

Lan wished he didn't know an Aes Sedai could get around her oath by being too far gone to know what she was saying.


End file.
